An initiative of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

The Common Good FAQ


The Common Good & Human Dignity: FAQs

1. What does human dignity mean?
2. What does marriage have to do with human dignity?
3. Does the Church believe that people who experience same-sex attraction have equal dignity?
4. What does “the common good” mean?
5. Isn’t marriage a private relationship? What does it have to do with the common good?
6. Isn’t marriage just a religious issue that the government should stay out of?
7. Is marriage a basic right? A human right?
8. Isn’t allowing two men or two women to marry just like interracial marriage?
9. Since all people deserve equal rights, why doesn’t the Church support “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (SOGI) non-discrimination legislation?

1. What does human dignity mean?

Human dignity means that every human person is made in the image of God (Gen 1:27) and deserves love and respect. Each and every human being is unique and irreplaceable. For these reasons, every man, woman, and child has great dignity that can never be taken away. Respecting a person’s dignity means treating them justly. It also means helping them to flourish as a human being.

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2. What does marriage have to do with human dignity?

Marriage protects and promotes human dignity because it corresponds to the truth of who the human person is. First, the lifelong partnership of marriage is the only place where men and women can truly “speak” the language of sexual love – free, total, faithful, and open to children. Only within marriage can sexual relations express true self-giving love between a man and a woman (and not the selfish use of sexual acts). Second, marriage provides a context within which the rights of children to a mother and a father are protected. Marriage also helps ensure that children will be welcomed as gifts. Without the life-long commitment of marriage, children are likely to be viewed as commodities. Finally, the family, founded on marriage, is the context in which a child can be most secure.

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3. Does the Church believe that people who experience same-sex attraction have equal dignity?

Of course! Every single human person has inviolable dignity and worth. All persons should be treated with respect, sensitivity, and love. The Church calls everyone to a life of holiness and chastity, and to live in accord with God’s will for their lives. For more information on the Church’s pastoral care to persons with same-sex attraction, see USCCB, Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination (2006).

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4. What does “the common good” mean?

The common good is “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily” (Gaudium et Spes, no. 26). A society focused on the common good upholds the fundamental dignity of each person and promotes their well-being. A good society is one in which it is easy to be good.

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5. Isn’t marriage just a private relationship? What does it have to do with the common good?

Marriage is a personal relationship, but not a private one. In fact, marriages play a crucial role in society. By marrying, husband and wife join more than their two lives together. They publicly declare that they will be faithful and open to children. Thus, each marriage is the foundation of a new family and so it is the very source of society (see Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 214), the “cradle of life and love” (Christifideles Laici, no. 40). It is in the family where people are most challenged to love and be interdependent. Husband and wife are called to model love and communion by welcoming and raising new human life and by taking care of the weak, sick, and old. Marriages and families provide social stability and thus foster the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity.

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6. Isn’t marriage just a religious issue that the government should stay out of?

No. The social value of marriage exists regardless of faith or belief. Marriage as a lifelong, faithful, and fruitful union between husband and wife serves the good of all and does not rely on strictly religious premises. The goods and benefits it offers for husbands, wives, children and society are based on the nature of the human person. The government has the responsibility of promoting the common good and the best interests of all people, especially the most vulnerable, and upholding authentic marriage does precisely that.

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7. Is marriage a basic right? A human right?

Rightly understood, yes, marriage is a human right. “No human law can abolish the natural and primitive right of marriage, or in any way limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage [which is to] ‘Increase and multiply’” (Rerum Novarum, no. 12).

Having the right to marry is just that—the right to enter into a marriage which is a lifelong faithful union of husband and wife. All persons, of full age, have the right to marry but not the right to redefine marriage. Relationships between two persons of the same sex cannot be defined as marriage. This is not meant to be cruel or unfair; it is the nature of marriage.  

In the same way, the right to marry is a civil right. But the “right to marry” is the right to enter into a faithful union with a person of the opposite sex, not the right to force others by law to treat another kind of relationship as if it were a marriage. Advocates for marriage redefinition ignore this key distinction. Far from serving the cause of civil rights, the redefinition of marriage threatens the civil right of religious freedom: it compels everyone—even those opposed in conscience to same-sex sexual conduct—to treat same-sex relationships as if they represented the same moral good as marital relationships.

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8. Isn’t allowing two men or two women to marry just like interracial marriage?

There is no valid analogy between redefining marriage to include persons of the same sex and interracial couples. A man and a woman can unite in marriage no matter what race they are. Sexual difference is an essential characteristic of marriage; race is not, nor has it ever been. (Historically speaking, laws that banned interracial marriage acknowledged its possibility and sought to thwart it; a key factor in such laws was that people were particularly incensed (sinfully so) by the fact that such marriages would produce children. In other words, the lawmakers knew very well that interracial marriages were the same kind of thing as any other marriage.) Marriage is rooted in nature: two people of the same sex are no more being denied the “right” to marry than a man is “denied” the “right” to gestate and nurse a child.

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9. Since all people deserve equal rights, why doesn’t the Church support “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (SOGI) non-discrimination legislation?

The Church continually supports the dignity and rights of each and every person. The term “sexual orientation,” however, is used in various contexts today with different meanings. For example, sometimes “sexual orientation” is used to describe one’s sexual inclination, tendency or attraction, but many times it is used in a way that includes sexual conduct. It can also be used in ways that give the impression that any sexual inclination is good or neutral and/or does not convey the nuances needed for genuine pastoral care.

Likewise, the term “gender identity” is used to promote the idea that one’s social-psychological identity is fundamentally different from one’s biological sex as male or female. Pope Francis noted: “It needs to be emphasized that ‘biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated’” (Amoris Laetitia 56). Ironically, advocates for the “gender identity” label frequently endorse cultural stereotypes of male or female. Sexual difference and sexual identity, however, go deeper than cultural stereotypes. Pastoral care and accompaniment is needed to listen and respond to the real struggles people experience while also helping them accept and mature in their sexual identity as male or female.

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